Set within the context of Doug Knight's contributions, encouraging a rigorous social-scientific and tradition-historical approach to the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in general.
This volume makes a positive intervention into maximalist/minimalist debates about Israelite historiography by pointing to the events that happened during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. During this historical epoch, traditions about Israel and Judah's founding became fixed as markers of ethnic identity, and much of the canonical Hebrew Bible came into its present form. Concentrating on these events, a clearer historical picture emerges.
The entire volume is set within the context of Douglas A. Knight's contributions, which have encouraged a rigorous social-scientific and tradition-historical approach to the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in general.
The totality of the list of contributors - which includes Job Berquist, Robert Wilson, Norman Gottwald, James Crenshaw, and many others - is immediately impressive ... The sum of the volume is most definitely useful for bringing readers up to speed on some of the central currents in critical scholarship. The contributors have shaped and continued to shape their respective niches and the field as a whole. That point is beyond dispute.
